The mid seventeenth century collapse of Iroquoian Ontario:

More documents

Recommendations

Info

M. JackeS 368 population decline. Intensifying war, with many killed, taken captive or forced to become refugees, led to almost complete population collapse. We have no reason to enter into the thorny field of debating the whys and wherefores of what happened in Iroquoian Ontario from 1642 to 1651. The basic facts seem indisputable and the Jesuit ethnohistorical record of them cannot be dismissed as self-serving and untruthful. Within those ten years, the Huron and Petun societies were destroyed, and many took refuge with the Neutral. The Iroquois then turned their attention to the Neutral. The demography of the Grimsby cemetery seemed originally to suggest very high fertility. However, the methods developed since the first analyses enable us to understand how the Grimsby cemetery does not contradict, but in fact fits with the ethnohistorical records in the Jesuit Relations. During the 1630s, perhaps into the early 1640s, the cemetery at Grimsby seems to have been dominated by two large multiple graves which contained a disproportionate number of women and children. It is not possible that this would represent a normal biological population. The best interpretation is that Grimsby was a place of refuge, especially for women and children. The last period of Grimsby was a time of many deaths. Feature 62 is characterized by the number of older people, by the burial together of groups of individuals who have skeletal traits suggesting familial relationships, by many adult males. Feature 62 represents the last Neutral ceremonial burial. Again, the best interpretation of the feature is of an aggregation of individuals in circumstances leading to members of the same families succumbing to death within a limited period of time. A possibility is the gathering of people into a sheltered area close to the lakeshore where food might have been available at a time of famine. Among these there could have been some Huron and Petun refugees as well as Neutral. Feature 1 displays no such ritualized burial. It appears to be the hasty collection of bones left broken and weathered, of incomplete and mixed individuals. Feature 1 was the last burial of the Neutral, apparently lacking the reverence for the dead which the Jesuits said characterized the Neutral. This would have occurred in 1651 during the final Iroquois onslaught, when it is recorded that the Neutral fled into the woods and dispersed for the last time. The panic flight was induced by the knowledge of what had happened to their Huron and Petun neighbours, their cruel destruction by the Iroquois. The years of famine and disease no doubt contributed to the rout of what had been a strong, populous and war-like nation. Grimsby still presents a mystery, but one which is perhaps best understood in terms of its special location. A core area containing phase II beads represents a small area of burials, with, beyond this, burials of many women and children. Several elements are unusual among these burials, Feature 11, especially, containing an aberrant mix of beads. Beyond again, there lies a spread of many burial features, the majority identified as belonging to bead phase IIIb. There appears to be an increasing number of burial features and an increasing number of individuals buried, through a time of disease, famine and war, and through space, spreading east along the escarpment from the waterfall gorge.
the Mid Seventeenth centuRy collapSe of iRoquoian on ta R i o We can envisage that the location had significance and that it was a place of refuge, that the dead do not represent a normal – demographically valid – population. This can be deduced from the biological and ethnohistorical impossibility that the fertility estimates based on the cemetery could be correct. Acknowledgements I am grateful to David Lubell for his help and forebearance, and to Rob von Bitter, Archaeological Data Co-ordinator, Heritage and Libraries Branch, Heritage Operations Unit, Ontario Ministry of Culture for providing me with information on archaeological finds in the Grimsby area. I thank Rob MacDonald, Bill Fox and Gary Warrick for positive feedback on the manuscript. Thanks to Stewart Leslie, Caroline Walker and especially Charles Garrad for help and also to Steve Catlin, Archivist, Martyrs’ Shrine. The Grimsby osteology monograph was never properly published for a number of reasons, including a reviewer who particularly castigated me for not realizing that I had outstanding palaeodemographic data. It was very hard for anthropologists in the early 1980s to realize or acknowledge that our palaeodemographic analyses might be meaningless. I was challenged to express my reservations clearly so that the problems would be understood and to develop new approaches to circumvent those problems. I am grateful for this incentive. Finally, Isabelle Séguy has been generous with her help and I thank her and her colleagues. References Historical Sources Biggar H. P. (ed.), 1922-1936.– The Works of Samuel de Champlain, Toronto, The Champlain Society, 6 vols. Charlevoix P. F. X., 1870.– History and General Description of New France, translated from the Paris edition of 1744, with notes by John Gilmary Shea, Chicago, Ill, JG Loyola University Press, 6 vols. Chaumonot P. J. M., 2002.– Autobiography and Supplement, Early Jesuit Missions in Canada, vol. 8, trans. W. Lonc, Midland, Ontario, Martyrs Shrine, 166 p. General references aCSádi g., nemeSkéri J., 1970.– History of human life span and mortality, Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 346 p. BliCk Jeffrey P., 2001.– The Iroquois practice of genocidal warfare (1534-1787), Journal of Genocide Research, 3, 3, p. 405-429. le ClerCq C., 1881.– First establishment of the faith in New France, translated from the Paris edition of 1691 with notes by John Gilmary Shea, New York, 2 vols. Sagard G., 1939.– The long journey to the country of the Hurons, G. M. Wrong (ed.), translated from the Paris edition of 1632 by H. H. Langton, Toronto, The Champlain Society, 488 p. thwaiteS R. G. (ed.), The Jesuit relations and allied documents, Cleveland, The Burrows Brothers, 73 vols. (published contemporaneously in Paris and cited throughout the text as JR). BoCquet-appel J. P., 2002.– Paleoanthropological Traces of a Neolithic Demographic Transition, Current Anthropology, 43, 4, p. 637- 650. BoCquet-appel J. p., naJi S., 2006.– Testing the Hypothesis of a Worldwide Neolithic Demo- 369
Page 1 and 2: Vers une anthropologie des catastro
Page 3 and 4: the Mid Seventeenth centuRy collapS
Page 17 and 18: Feature 62 and Feature 1 the Mid Se
Page 21: the Mid Seventeenth centuRy collapS
Page 25 and 26: area of North America, Archaeometry
Page 27: amSden P. G., 1990.- The Hurons: ar

The mid seventeenth century collapse of Iroquoian Ontario:

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?